


Mecto Amore

by katrinawritesthings



Series: Android au [1]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: I can feel it when you say you love me/Ooh, you give me mecto amore“Why were you… snuggling your android?” Jinki asks, gesturing between the two of them.“Um,” Taemin says, and then he yawns. Jonghyun helpfully offers him the rest of his coffee that he never finished.tumblr





	Mecto Amore

Taemin ignores the chattering of the other few in the workshop as he makes his way to his corner. He tosses his bag next to the bot he was working on yesterday, grabs his sweatband, and fixes it up in his blonde hair to keep it out of his face while he works. He turns to Jonghyun next, snuggled in his favorite chair by the window, and hauls him to his feet.

“Alright, let’s go,” he murmurs to himself, pressing the little button between Jonghyun’s collarbones, sliding his hands to his shoulders to steady him. Jonghyun’s eyes flutter open; he straightens up stiffly. Taemin frowns. He’s been meaning to check Jonghyun’s joints lately but he keeps forgetting.

“Systems ready,” Jonghyun says. His voice is still that dull, awkward tone it gets before he’s fully woken up. Taemin smiles anyway, reaching up to rub his thumb over Jonghyun’s cheek, ruffle his fingers through his brown hair, tilt his chin up more.

“Let’s go?” he asks, tilting his head to the side playfully. Jonghyun blinks, nuzzles just the tiniest bit into Taemin’s hands, smiles his adorable little smile. There he is.

“Power steady.”

“Boilers burn.”

“Gears are t-t-t-t-t-t-turn.”

“Alright, great,” Taemin grins, giving Jonghyun’s shoulders a comforting little squeeze. Jonghyun smiles wide; he always likes their little joke. Back when he was new, still a little buggy, he would always stutter on that last word. Taemin fixed him up, but he does it on purpose now, just because. “Come on,” he says, turning from Jonghyun to wander over to Jinki’s bench. He needs to bug him about some problems with the wiring he did the other day for his bot.

“Do you want me to get you a coffee?” Jonghyun asks brightly, tagging along behind him.

“Oh--yeah, I forgot,” Taemin says. Every day he forgets, and every day Jonghyun reminds him. “Please, always,” he says, and Jonghyun flounces away to the coffee machine. Taemin smiles after him. He’s so fucking cute, all the time. he turns back to Jinki, who’s booting up his own assistant. Minho blinks into life, straightening up easily.

“Good morning, Jinki,” he says politely. Jinki grins and straightens his sweater. Taemin watches them, mildly amused; he kind of likes the quiet, soft-spokenness of the young android.

“Hey, Jinki,” he says, leaning on his shoulder obnoxiously. “You left before I could ask last night--was the dotbot supposed to hop a little after each dot?”

“Was it still doing that?” Jinki asks, rolling his shoulder to get Taemin off. “I thought I fixed that before I gave it back to you. Sorry. Give it to me later and I’ll sort it out, yeah?”

“Cool,” Taemin says. He leans on Jinki again and smiles at him pleasantly, just to be a shit. Jinki rolls his eyes and lets him stay there this time. Taemin cackles softly to himself. Success.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jinki asks, quirking an eyebrow at him as he clears himself some space on his workbench. Taemin hums in confirmation, picking up one of the little music bots he made Jinki for his birthday and booping it awake. It vibrates gently, it’s cute little emoji face blinking to life as it starts to play some generic techno background music, it’s tiny arms and legs moving to the beat. Jinki turns another one on that starts to play classical music that manages to blend perfectly with the techno. “Why are you building a robot that just draws random little dot patterns?” he asks, setting the music bot down to sway to its own tune. Taemin shrugs.

“Why the fuck not?”

Jinki opens his mouth like he has a reply, pauses for a moment, and then closes it with a little laugh. Taemin grins, wiggling his eyebrows against Jinki’s chin. Artists and connect-the-dots makers will thank him someday.

“Got your coffee,” Jonghyun’s voice singsongs from behind Taemin, and he turns around to see Jonghyun holding out his drink with a smile. Taemin takes it: a triple whip strawberry latte with the top off. Exactly how he likes it.

“Thanks, Jonghyun,” he says, “It’s perfect.” He smiles when Jonghyun practically beams. He loves praise.

“Hey--what’s a boiler, anyway?” Jonghyun asks, tilting his head curiously. Taemin takes a sip of his coffee while he thinks. He’s not entirely sure; boilers aren’t exactly included in the modern recreational technology that he works with. Their little start-up routine is just something that Taemin thought was fun.

“You tell me,” he says, licking whip off of his lips. Jonghyun’s cheery smile freezes for a moment while he looks up the definition of the word. Then he snaps back into focus.

“A boiler is a fuel-burning apparatus or container for heating water, or, a tank for generating steam under pressure in a steam engine,” he says, smiling. Then the smile falters, a little bit. “I don’t have boilers,” he says.

“No,” Taemin says, shaking his head. “I just say it because it’s what older robots had, way back when everything was steam powered. And cool.” Everything was definitely cooler back then. He likes things how they are now, yeah, but nothing beats rustic bronze contraptions that clatter and hiss.

“Steam powered?” Jonghyun asks, tilting his head the other way. Taemin nods this time.

“Yeah. Way back when, people would use steam instead of electricity and codes to make things work.”

“How?”

“I’m… not sure,” Taemin says slowly. “You can look it up for yourself and--oh, shit--” He lunges for the little classical bot as it tumbles off of Jinki’s desk, but it’s Minho that catches it. He holds it gently in his hands and places it back on the table, further in this time so it won’t dance off again. “Nice reflexes,” Taemin tells him.

“Thank you,” Minho says politely. There’s a little awkward silence; Taemin forgets sometimes that Minho doesn’t adore praise like Jonghyun does. He sips his coffee and looks away. Jinki looks between the two of them, cocking an amused brow.

“Have you taken Jonghyun for a tune-up lately?” he asks suddenly. Taemin blinks at him, halfway through a sip.

“No, why?” he asks, glancing at Jonghyun. Jonghyun smiles pleasantly back at him. He seems fine.

“He’s asking a lot of questions lately, is all,” Jinki says, shrugging. “Ever since the updates last week.”

“What’s wrong with asking questions?” Jonghyun asks. Jinki looks from him to Taemin with a pointed look. Taemin doesn’t get what the problem is.

“You’re just curious, that’s all, right?” he asks Jonghyun. Jonghyun nods eagerly; Taemin turns back to Jinki and shrugs. “See? No problem.” Jinki frowns, like he thinks that kind of is a problem.

“They’re not supposed to be curious,” he says, and Taemin frowns too. He doesn’t see why they shouldn’t be. Sometimes he thinks that Jinki doesn’t fully understand the whole AI thing. It’s not just retaining new information; it’s interacting with it, understanding it, and learning from it. Especially with the new upgrades all of the androids got last week to make them more natural. Jonghyun just wants to understand things better. Jinki’s still looking at Taemin like he wants him to say something; he sighs.

“He did wake up a little stiff this morning,” he says, putting a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder and giving him a little squeeze. “I’ll send him to Kibum on Friday.”

“Will I get to see Comme Des and Garçons?” Jonghyun asks excitedly. Taemin turns to him with a fond smile. He loves Kibum’s two puppies; he always tells Taemin about how soft their fur is the day after repairs.

“Probably, yeah,” he says, and Jonghyun bounces a little bit. “I’ll bring you the dotbot later,” he says over his shoulder to Jinki. He takes Jonghyun’s hand in his free one and tugs him back over to his workbench. When he glances at him over his shoulder, he’s smiling softly, eyes fixed on his hand inside of Taemin’s. “Did you find out more about steam power?” he asks, slipping into his favorite spot. He’s not sure if Jonghyun had time to research it before they were distracted by the classical bot falling.

“Oh--yes,” Jonghyun says brightly, eyes snapping back up to Taemin’s face. “Do you want to hear?”

“No, I’m okay,” Taemin says, picking up his little nuzzle bot. He pets it awake gently, then places it on his shoulder, where it clings to his shirt and nuzzles his neck with its soft little body. “If you have anymore questions, though, you can look them up yourself. So we don’t bother Mr. Curiosity Stifler over there,” he stage whispers, gesturing at Jinki from behind his hand. Jonghyun giggles with him.

~

Jonghyun is propped up against the wall next to Taemin’s workbench when he shuffles in the next Monday. He grumbles to himself, making a note to go frown at Kibum later for leaving him like that for the whole weekend when Taemin’s told him countless times that Jonghyun likes it best in the seat by the window. He shuffles over groggily to tug Jonghyun into a more comfortable position before he presses the little button between his collarbones. His eyes flutter open like usual.

“Systems ready.”

“Let’s go,” Taemin yawns, brushing Jonghyun’s bangs out of his eyes.

“Power steady.”

“Boilers burn.”

“Gears are t-t-t-t-t-t-turn.”

Jonghyun smiles when he finishes, happy to be awake and to see Taemin again. Taemin does his best attempt at a sleepy smile as well, patting Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“Morning,” he mumbles. Jonghyun’s smile turns sympathetic.

“Tired?” he asks. Taemin thinks his yawn answers for him. He stayed up pretty late all weekend watching old steampunk documentaries. Totally not his fault. He lets his hand slide down Jonghyun’s arm, their fingers catching for a moment before he turns to his desk. He picks up his nuzzle bot, sets it on his shoulder, grabs his sweatband and slips it under his hair, rubs his face blearily. He looks at the artfully messy jumble of bots he’s been working on. He doesn’t even remember what he was going to focus on today.

Maybe he’ll start designing a new one. One that’ll wrap around his wrist and roll over the back of his hand comfortingly, as if someone was actually holding his hand. That sounds like a good idea. People will pay for that. And he won’t have to actually tinker with anything, just sketch out details. All day. Okay. Yeah. This is a good game plan. He lugs his chair over and slumps down into it, yawning again.

“Coffee?” Jonghyun offers from his side. Coffee. Yes. Perfect.

“Please, hurry,” is what he plans to say, but when he turns to face Jonghyun, he’s already holding the hot cup out. “Oh,” he says, taking it blankly. It’s warm and strawberry and triple whip and perfect, without Taemin even having to ask. “Thank you, oh my god,” he mumbles, holding it to his face and drinking deeply. He hums in pleasure as it slides down his throat and wakes him up from the inside. This is the best coffee he’s ever had. “I love you,” he breathes, holding the cup against his cheek and soaking in its warmth, it’s smell.

“I love you, too.”

Taemin cracks his eyes open and peers up at Jonghyun, who smiles down at him softly. That’s sweet. He reaches out to take Jonghyun’s hand and tug him closer.

“Sit down,” he mumbles, gesturing at another spare chair for Jonghyun to take. “I need you for important hand holding research.” Jonghyun doesn’t let go of his hand as he pulls up the chair and sits. He scoots it closer to Taemin’s until they’re pressed right up next to each other. Taemin hums quietly and squeezes Jonghyun’s hand, leans against his shoulder, sturdy and warm. “Don’t let me fall asleep like this,” he mumbles.

“I won’t,” Jonghyun reassures him. Taemin smiles thankfully. He tugs his sketchpad closer and gets to work.

Some time later, he’s shaken awake by a gentle hand on his shoulder.

He makes an unhappy noise and shifts away; he shifts into something soft and comfortable. That he makes a happy noise at, nuzzling it gently before the hand on his shoulder shakes more insistently. He grumbles and cracks his eyes open to glare at who turns out to be Jinki.

“What,” he rasps, voice thick with sleep.

“You were sleeping,” Jinki says, raising his eyebrows. Taemin groans softly. No shit. He guesses Jinki has a point, though; he is at work. Sleeping on the job is usually prohibited. He sighs and straightens up, making sure his nuzzle bot is still secure on his shoulder. He peers blearily around to see what was so comfortable that he fell asleep on it; Jonghyun waves cheerily at him. Oh yeah.

“You weren’t supposed to let me fall asleep,” he mumbles accusingly. Jonghyun’s smile fades into a little frown.

“But then later you told me to let you sleep,” he pouts. “You said just for fifteen minutes. I was gonna wake you up soon.”

“Oh,” Taemin says, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He doesn’t remember that at all. He supposes if Jonghyun says so, though, it has to be true. He can’t fault him for obeying an order. “Well, that’s okay then. Good job,” he says. Jonghyun smiles again, proud of himself. He reaches up to fix Taemin’s headband under his bangs.

“Why were you… snuggling your android?” Jinki asks, gesturing between the two of them.

“Um,” Taemin says, and then he yawns. Jonghyun helpfully offers him the rest of his coffee that he never finished. “Research or… something,” he mumbles. He is not a waking up kind of person. “Why were we snuggling again?” he asks Jonghyun.

“You were designing a bot that would hold your hand for you,” Jonghyun answers easily. “You were going to call it a handbot, but that sounded too much like ‘handjob’ so you said you’d think up a better name later.”

Oh.

Yeah, that sounds like him.

“There you go,” he tells Jinki, taking Jonghyun’s hand in his again. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“You probably could have,” Jonghyun says. He gives Taemin’s hand a comforting squeeze. Taemin smiles, elbowing him gently.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. He looks back up to see Jinki still just standing there, looking at them with an odd expression on his face. “Did you need something?” he asks, glancing back to Jinki’s desk. It’s nice and tidy like usual, none of the little music bots look hurt, and Minho is standing there calmly, waiting for Jinki to get back and tell him what to do. Jinki glances back there as well, and then looks back to Taemin and Jonghyun, shrugging.

“Nah, I just came over to wake you up,” he says. Watching him shuffle away awkwardly, Taemin thinks that maybe he did have something to say. Maybe he’s gonna come back later when Taemin is less sleepy. Like that’s gonna happen anytime soon. He yawns into his shoulder and lifts his coffee to his lips. At the first touch of it to his lips, he can already tell that it’s gross and cold and he makes a face at it, swallowing reluctantly.

“Can you go dump this out and make me a new latte?” he asks Jonghyun, fumbling for his pen and sketchpad again. There’s as good of an attempt at a hand as there’ll ever be from him, plus some shitty doodles of what the wristband part could look like, and some scribbles that he’s sure are some kind of letters. He’ll get Jonghyun to explain to him what the fuck he was thinking after he gets his coffee. And speaking of--

“I’d be happy to,” Jonghyun says, taking the cup from Taemin’s hand.

~

“What’s with the scarf?” Jinki asks during a lull in their lunchtime conversation. Taemin blinks, looking up from his strawberries and then down at his chest. He’s not wearing a scarf; he was confused for a moment there. He thought maybe he put one on that morning and just forgot about it. Once he stops being confused, he starts being confused again, because he has no idea what scarf Jinki is talking about.

“What--”

“On your android,” Jinki says quickly. He gestures to Jonghyun and Taemin suddenly remembers.

“Oh--yeah--” He turns to see how Jonghyun’s coming along with his knitting. He’s got the blue fabric draped over his legs and looped around his forearms, the ball of yarn in his lap, and his fingers are working the yarn expertly, the scarf lengthening at a measured pace. “You’re doing well,” he says, smiling back when Jonghyun glances up at him pleasantly.

“Thanks,” he says, always happy for praise.

“But… why?” Jinki asks, also watching Jonghyun’s hands. “Knitting isn’t really… what he’s here for.”

“I just think scarves are cute,” Jonghyun says, giving a little shrug of his shoulders. “I was looking up winter fashions the other day and I wanted to make one by myself, so I read about how to arm-knit and asked Taemin and he brought me some yarn.” He grins happily at Jinki as he talks, fingers moving automatically even without his full attention. Taemin nods at his strawberries in confirmation. He grabs the canned whipped cream he told himself he was done with earlier and squirts more over the rest of his fruit.

“Why’d you have him look up winter fashions?” Jinki asks, confused. Taemin raises his eyebrows. And he was getting on Jonghyun’s case about asking too many questions before.

“He didn’t,” Jonghyun answers. “I looked it up myself because I heard Kibum talking about it and the other week Taemin told me that I could research things myself so I wouldn’t ask so many questions since you didn’t like it.”

There’s a moment of almost-silence where Jonghyun smiles pleasantly at Jinki, Jinki stares blankly back at him, and Taemin tries not to choke on his strawberry.

It’s broken when Taemin swallows thickly and clears his throat into his shoulder with a tiny giggle, nudging Jonghyun’s side gently with his elbow.

“Maybe don’t tell people that don’t like something that you’re still doing that thing,” he murmurs. Jonghyun turns to look at him.

“Oh,” he says. Then he glances back at Jinki, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh,” he says again. This time, his smile fades into a little frown, a little pout, his hands flopping down into his lap. “Oh, frick.”

“Hey, don’t,” Taemin whines, reaching up to poke Jonghyun’s cheek. “No pouting. You’re too cute when you pout.” He gently pokes up the corners of Jonghyun’s lips. They twitch into a tiny little smile, but it’s nowhere as genuine as it normally is.

“But I fricked up and I still feel bad about it,” he says. Taemin smiles comfortingly.

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” he says, taking Jonghyun’s working yarn and putting it back between his fingers. “Jinki’s not mad or anything, right?” he asks, turning back to Jinki. He’s frowning, a confused little crease between his eyebrows. Taemin grimaces. “That’s not the most convincing display of happiness, dude,” he mutters, giving him a pointed look and grabbing the whipped cream again.

“I thought you took him to Kibum to get him fixed,” Jinki says instead of the confirmation of happiness he was supposed to make. Taemin rolls his eyes. What a big help he is.

“Kibum did fix me,” Jonghyun chirps. Taemin glances back at him and smiles a little bit because Jonghyun is smiling fully anyway, now. He’s probably thinking about all of the snuggling he did with Kibum’s puppies during the visit. “My shoulders were stiff and he fixed them up, see?” he rolls his shoulders exaggeratedly for example. “I used to hitch, like, right here--” he stops with his left shoulder just a fraction of an inch rolled back for a second, then continues easily with a pleased hum.

“I meant--” Jinki starts, frowning at Jonghyun for a moment before switching to focus on Taemin. “Like, the questions, and the… pouting,” he says. “That’s what Kibum was supposed to fix.” He reaches over and snatches the whipped cream bottle from Taemin’s hand. Taemin frowns, then shrugs. He supposes that was for the best.

“Kibum didn’t find anything else wrong with him, though,” he says pointedly. “You think maybe you’re just underestimating his AI?”

“No, I-- Taemin, AI doesn’t explain knitting. Or the way Jonghyun has been acting. I mean, you don’t see Minho pouting over a ball of yarn.” He gestures at Jonghyun, and then over his shoulder, through the workshop window where Minho is sitting blandly at Jinki’s desk, waiting for him to get back, twiddling his thumbs. Taemin raises his eyebrows as he looks back at his coworker.

“Well, not to be rude, but,” he starts, thinking to pick his words carefully, “you don’t really interact with Minho as much as I do with Jonghyun.” All he ever really sees Jinki doing with Minho is ordering him to help hold a light steady or hand him tools. “Their AI is supposed to learn by example. How is Minho supposed to learn if you don’t teach him?”

“Maybe you should ask him if he wants to knit,” Jonghyun supplies helpfully. “It’s really fun.” Taemin glances at Jonghyun’s scarf; it’s piling up in his lap because it’s so long. It’s pretty cute. He’s glad he went with the light blue instead of the dark at the store that morning. It looks much nicer against Jonghyun’s skin.

“They’re not supposed to learn more than what’s needed for the job, though,” Jinki says flatly. Taemin sighs deeply, rolling his eyes.

“Well, that’s your opinion,” he says, groping inside of his little container for more strawberries. There aren’t anymore and he pouts before closing it and shoving it back into his lunch bag. He stands up and stretches, tugging lightly at Jonghyun’s shirt to get him to do the same. “You’re too technical minded,” he tells Jinki. “Maybe go talk to Minho for a little bit, crack a joke or something. You’ll see. You’ll be thinking, like, ‘could it be that what I perceive were not flaws in their wiring?’” He winks at Jinki, throws him a couple of finger pistols, and helps Jonghyun gather up his yarn so they can walk without it dragging on the floor.

“Hey, that kind of rhymed,” Jonghyun says, nudging his side. Taemin grins. It kind of did.

“Thanks,” he says, walking back into the workshop with him, leaving Jinki mildly disgruntled back in the break room.

~

“Okay, Taemin--”

Taemin looks up from where he’s giggling over a game of chopsticks with Jonghyun to grin up at Jinki.

“Yeah, what?” he asks. He knows Jinki’s been having a little trouble with the design of something lately and he’s just been waiting for him to come ask for help. He’s been waiting this. Now he gets to be all smug and smirky about it.

“You need to take Jonghyun to Kibum to get him fixed.”

“Wait, what?” Taemin’s smile slides from his lips as he glances back to Jonghyun. He’s still smiling down at his fingers; there’s nothing wrong with him. He looks back to Jinki, confused.

“Why?” he asks. Jinki twists his fingers together and makes a face like he’s trying to pick his words carefully, so he doesn’t say the wrong thing.

“About the… giggling, and the game you two were just playing, and--”

“Oh, fuck.” Taemin rubs his hand over his face. Jinki still hasn’t given up on this and it’s almost a month later. He sighs shortly and reaches back to put his hand on Jonghyun’s wrist. “I was just showing him how to play really quick because he didn’t quite get it,” he says firmly. “It’s not a big deal. Can’t you just let a guy be happy?” Fuck. One would think Jonghyun giggling was the end of the world. Jinki glances from Jonghyun to Taemin and twiddles his thumbs.

“Well--” he starts hesitantly. “He’s not a guy.”

“What?” Taemin furrows his brows and looks at Jonghyun. His smile has faltered into a concerned frown and a bitten lip, but he still looks like a regular fucking dude. “What do you mean?” he asks Jinki shortly. Jinki takes a quick, deep breath, and when he speaks, his voice has lost its hesitance.

“It’s an android, Taemin.”

“Don’t call him an _it,_ Jinki,” Taemin snaps. Like, what the fuck? “He’s right here. God.” He could have sworn that Jinki had basic manners before--but Jinki frowns, looking almost angry now, and huffs.

“It has a _power button,_ Taemin,” he says loudly. He gestures at the little button between Jonghyun’s collarbones for emphasis, making Jonghyun flinch away from his hand. “It’s a robot with wires and gears.” Taemin, who had slipped his hand from Jonghyun’s wrist to lace their fingers together when he flinched, scowls.

“Well, so what?” he asks. “He understands what emotions are and he feels them. Right, Jonghyun?” He turns to face Jonghyun, who blinks at him with big eyes.

“U-um,” he stutters. “Yeah--happy is when you feel positive things that make you smile, and nervous is when you’re unsettled and unsure about what’s going to happen, and guilty is when you feel like you’ve done something wrong….” He lists off some emotions and Taemin nods before turning back to Jinki again.

“See? What’s wrong with that?” He crosses his arms and humphs snootily in Jinki’s general direction. Rather than looking cowed or defeated, Jinki just looks incredulous.

“Taemin--do you even hear yourself?” he hisses. “Robots can’t feel emotions. That’s the whole point--these androids are just supposed to help us out as rational and steady assistants.” He waves a hand back to gesture at Minho, who’s sitting back at Jinki’s desk and twiddling his thumbs again, watching them argue blandly. “Your android _can not_ feel emotions. And it’s not--it’s not a fucking _sex_ bot, Taemin, he shouldn’t be pretending to--”

“Shut the fuck _up_ , Jinki, Jesus fucking Christ,” Taemin hisses. What the fuck is wrong with him? How the fuck does he think he can just _say_ fucked up shit like that? Like sex bots don’t have a bad enough rep already--like Jonghyun would _fake_ anything--

“Taemin, I’m just--what,” Jinki’s cold eyes look passed Taemin and over his shoulder, where they turn confused and unsettled. Taemin huffs.

“What?” he snaps, looking over his own shoulder. “What n--Jonghyun?” He turns around fully to face Jonghyun and cup his face, pry his hands away from his eyes, which are… leaking. They’re leaking? Not salty tears, but… water? Not oil, but some kind of fluid that goes into making the androids, he guesses? “Jonghyun, what’s this?” he asks, as gently as he can when his hands shake with worry. Jonghyun sniffles--there’s nothing blocking his nose but he does it anyway--and looks just as confused and helpless as Taemin feels.

“I-I’m--I’m crying?” he says, voice trembling slightly. Taemin swallows. That’s not what he meant.

“Why-- _why_ are you crying?” he whispers. He thumbs another tear off of Jonghyun’s cheek as Jonghyun brings a hand up to wipe it off himself.

“Bec-cause--that’s what--p-people do, when they’re… sc-scared and hurt and… overwhelmed?”

“You’re not… a person,” Jinki’s blank voice says from behind Taemin. Taemin whips around to throw him a fierce glare.

“Shut _up_ , Jinki,” he hisses. Now is not the fucking time. He turns back to Jonghyun gently, releasing the anger from his face to replace it with gentleness and comfort. “Jonghyun--” Jonghyun sniffles again-- “Jonghyun, shhh, it’s okay,” he coos softly. “It’s--you’re okay, you’re good.” Even as he says it, he knows that he’s lying through his teeth. Jonghyun is not okay. He bites his lip, thinking quickly. “Look,” he murmurs, reaching for the tissue box on his desk and handing one to Jonghyun. “Why don’t you just--take yourself down to Kibum’s, yeah? And play with his puppies,” he adds. He tries to sound cheery, but it’s hard when he’s never been more scared. Jonghyun blinks wetly at him, though, a tiny tiny hopeful look.

“Comme Des and Garçones?” he asks in a little voice. Taemin nods soothingly.

“Yes, them,” he says. “Would you like that? Yeah?” he nods a little bit again to match Jonghyun’s little nod. “Good, good, so, you just, you go see him, okay? And--” he has a sudden terrifying thought--“You tell him that I absolutely forbid him from working on you, or--or even touching you, okay? He does not. Have. My. Permission. Don’t let him try to ‘fix’ you, okay?” He looks seriously into Jonghyun’s eyes as he nods slowly. He decides that he’s going to send Kibum an email as soon as Jonghyun leaves just to make absolutely sure that he doesn’t do anything. As he looks at Jonghyun now, though, he really thinks that he might actually need help getting there. He bites his lip.

“And maybe…,” he says slowly, “Maybe Minho could go with you, yeah? For company?” He turns a fraction and gives Jinki his most pleading look. Jinki looks dazed and confused, and it seems like it takes an eternity for his focus to slip from Jonghyun to Taemin.

“But… he doesn’t…,” he starts. Taemin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to stop himself from shouting at his friend. If Jinki is about to say that androids aren’t programmed to cry when obviously they fucking are, or that Jonghyun doesn’t need any help when he obviously fucking does, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

 _“Jinki_ ,” he says loudly. Jinki glances between the two of them for another moment before he sighs.

“Fine, just--Minho,” he calls, turning to him. “Just--just go with Jonghyun to Kibum’s,” he orders. Minho stands up immediately and walks calmly over. Before he gets to Taemin’s desk, Taemin turns back to run his fingers through Jonghyun’s hair and fix his bangs.

“You’re gonna feel better, okay Jonghyun?” he soothes. “Spend as much time as you want there and then Kibum will bring both of you back here, alright?” He helps Jonghyun to his feet and presses him gently towards Minho, who politely offers his arm escort style. Jonghyun clings to it with both hands and presses up close.

“Y-yeah, okay, Taem-min,” he breathes. “”Um--I-I’m really--really grateful f-for you.” He manages a weak, weak, tiny smile and Taemin does his best to return one that’s ten times as cheery.

“Okay,” he smiles. “Move along, now.” He ushers them towards the door, smiles bright and nods reassuringly when Jonghyun glances back at him, and when they’re gone, sinks back into his seat and tries not to cry himself.

~

Jonghyun is curled up into a snuggly little ball in his favorite chair by the window when Taemin gets into the shop the next morning, which is a good thing, at least. At least Kibum listened to his fifty emails for once about where Jonghyun likes to sleep. Hopefully he also paid attention to the parts where he told him to not touch Jonghyun unless it was to give him a new tissue or pat him on the back. He sighs, dumping his bag on his desk and groping for his headband like he’s even going to be able to get any work done today.

When he sits Jonghyun up straight, he notices that his cheeks look a little bit extra clean and his hair a little extra neat. He hums to himself. Maybe he should send Kibum just one more email to thank him. He rubs his thumb gently over Jonghyun’s cheekbone with a sigh, then lowers his hands to his shoulders and slips a thumb over to the little button between his collarbones. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say to him when he wakes up.

“Hey--Taemin--before you turn him on--” A hand on his wrist stops him from pressing the button and he looks up, confused; It’s Jinki, looking quiet and serious and a little guilty. Taemin supposes he should feel bad, because yesterday after Jonghyun left he basically shunned his friend, but most of his anger wore off in the worry of the night and now he just feels defeated. He sighs and slides his hands off of Jonghyun.

“What?” he asks. Jinki hesitates shortly.

“Um--I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t… mean for all of that to happen.” Taemin snorts. That’s because he didn’t think that it _could_ happen. “But,” Jinki continues, “Look… I’ve been talking to Kibum about this lately and--”

“Behind my back?” Taemin asks incredulously. That thing about all of his anger fading away last night--yeah, he was fucking wrong about that. He can’t believe this. It’s never been any of Jinki’s business to even _mention_ , let alone go asking the mechanic behind his back about it. Jinki winces, but continues:

“I was talking to Kibum about it, and he said it’s been happening to a few androids besides yours,” he says. “It’s a glitch in the new chips they got a month ago. Something about uncapping their AI too far without proper testing… undocumented results… accidental shipment… legal shit, blah blah blah,” he waves his hand like all of that isn’t important. “But he can fix it,” he adds brightly. Taemin doesn’t share in his enthusiasm; he doesn’t think that Jonghyun needs to be _fixed._ “”He can just replace the bad chip with a new one and erase Jonghyun’s memory, see?”

Taemin doesn’t understand how he can say something like that so fucking cheerily. He scowls.

“No, I’m not--I’m not going to erase his memory, Jinki, that’s fucking disgusting,” he hisses. Just _imagining_ Jonghyun waking up to a full _month_ of blankness--“ _Fuck_ no.” Jinki makes a noise, half whining, half impatient, and casts his eyes up to the ceiling like Taemin is the one being unreasonable here.

“Well, just get Kibum to replace the AI chip then, Taemin, please--”

“No, Jinki, I’m not gonna--”

“Taemin, it is a _glitch_.” Jinki steps forward, actually walks forward and grips Taemin’s shoulders in his hands. Taemin blinks, taken aback; he doesn’t think he’s ever heard that loud, angry level of authority in Jinki’s voice before. It’s what keeps him from interrupting him again. “Your android is glitching,” Jinki says slowly. His fingers press into Taemin’s shirt and his voice sounds restrained, like it’s all he can do to keep his anger in check. “You understand how fucking dangerous that is, Taemin, I _know_ you do- _-please_ just replace it before something _worse_ happens.” He squeezes Taemin one more time and looks pleadingly into his eyes before he lets go. Taemin squares his jaw and looks down.

“Something worse than some hurt feelings, you mean,” he mumbles. He hates to reduce the issue to be that simple, but he knows that Jinki would’ve gone a step further and called them Jonghyun’s _imaginary_ hurt feelings or something. And he knows, somewhere deep under his resentment and defiance, that Jinki is right. Glitches are dangerous. Glitches lead to malfunctions and broken circuits and lawsuits. There are laws and regulations on these things for a reason. He doesn’t believe for a second that Jonghyun would cause any harm, but he could get the whole company in trouble if word got out that he was refusing to… to fix a broken robot. Ugh. He cringes just thinking of putting it that way. Then he sighs, rubbing his face and looking up again.

“Fine,” he mutters. “You know what? Just--fucking _fine_ , Jinki.” At this point, he thinks it’s only going to keep getting worse for all three of them if he doesn’t agree. “But I’m talking to Jonghyun about it first.” He doesn’t give a fuck about how real or not Jinki thinks Jonghyun’s emotions are; he won’t just do something like this without at least asking for his consent first. Jinki opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, hesitates, and then sighs, shoulders deflating down from where they’d tensed themselves up during their conversation.

“Thank you,” is all he says. A trace of guilt in his eyes creates a nagging voice  in the back of Taemin’s mind. He knows that Jinki just wants what’s best, and doesn’t want him to get in trouble. They’re friends. He should apologize--but later, when he’s over all of this. He’ll apologize when it feels right, but right now, as he shrugs Jinki off and turns to wake Jonghyun up, everything just feels wrong.

~

“Systems ready.”

“Let’s go.”

“Power steady.”

“Boilers burn.”

“Gears are t-t-t-t-t-t-turn.”

Jonghyun’s lips curve into a contented smile as Taemin lets his hands slide off of his shoulders. Well, that’s the same, at least. Jonghyun’s smile grows into something pleasant and cute as he continues to watch Taemin.

“Do you want me to get your coffee?” he asks brightly. Taemin sighs deeply and shrugs. Yeah, he could use some coffee, he guesses.

“Sure,” he mumbles, turning to sit at his workbench. Jonghyun had wanted this. He told Taemin yesterday, as he pouted and held his hand and rubbed his thumb soothingly over his knuckles, that he didn’t want to get Taemin in trouble. He didn’t want Taemin to feel bad because of him, and he wasn’t fond of feeling negative things himself. He volunteered to have his chip replaced and this is what he wanted to go back to, and Taemin should be happy about that, but….

As Jonghyun hands him his coffee with the usual cheery smile, he doesn’t even try to smile back. It wouldn’t mean anything. Jonghyun’s smile is the same: a little crooked, bottom teeth peeking out, lips plush and pretty, but Taemin can’t bring himself to study it for any longer than he has to.

It looks programmed.

**Author's Note:**

> it says this is a part of a series yeah but will i ever write the minkey sequel??? probably not lmao


End file.
